After about an hour of putting my grubby paws all over Garabal’s knick knacks, he opened the door and came out of the back room and into the kitchen area. Somehow looking younger than he had going in. he poured himself a big glass of water, and joined me at the table.
“Hey kid, sorry that took so long, I’d forgotten how Aggie and I could talk. She had to remind me you were out here or we’d have been on the phone till dawn.” He slowly took another drink of water, clearly still thinking about Aggie. I wasn’t really in a hurry, so I let him ruminate. After a few more moments he shook himself and got back to business. “Did Wes hook you up? were you able to talk to your sister?”
“He sure did” I replied, “He also left you this tablet computer to replace your old one. If Moore’s laws apply here, as it did back in my world, it’s several thousand times more powerful than that luggable over there. Come over here and I’ll show you the very basics of how it works.”
I spent about 10 minutes showing him the wonders of a graphical user interface, how to plug in the tablet in, turn it off and on and so forth. Garabal picked it up surprisingly quickly. He was a God after all, I guess. Though at this point he felt more like one of my great uncles. Lastly, I summed up all things fruit computer related for Gar and said “I want you to spend a while every day, exploring all the apps on this thing. There are bound to be tools here you never had before. Once you are good there, hit the app store and see what’s there. I warned Wes you’d be calling him for tech support. He’s got his number, his parent’s number and Aggies number set up on the videophone app already. Lean on him till you get more up to speed.”
Gar laughed and fiddled with it good naturedly. “It certainly feels like a role reversal.” He sat the tablet down, and turned his attention back to me. ”A few critical things for you to know. My symbol is a black tower on a grey background. I was the only God of the Elder People, so I covered everything. The Elder People were known as great mages and crafters. “
Gar continued, “According to many legends, my people built the first worlds everyone inhabited. To be honest it was more like subcontracting, running wires and plumbing, trim carpentry, things like that, but it gives the Elder People great cachet.” He stood up pacing about the room, talking with his hands as much as his mouth. “My people went out a lot like the elves in lord of the rings. They got tired and sort of faded from the world, dying off or leaving the world behind. Kind of a mass cultural sense of ennui. Devona the world you are going to, was once one of the worlds where my people lived, before they abandoned it and everywhere else. Unless they scraped it raw, there will be pieces of their works hidden about. Try to find those caches, they will respond to you. They will be in remote hard to find places. The easy stuff was robbed off by collectors long, long ago and taken off world. To go all poetic on you they will be in the deep fastnesses of the world.”
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Checking that I followed he began again…“There are lots of ways to play the game. Exploring and claiming structures, especially shrines and the like. Also claiming land will be a good place to start. Converting people obviously. Raising monuments in my name, or the name of my people. Reclaiming lost structures and facilities, acquiring vast wealth, conquest and subjugation… If you can think of it, it’s been tried. Once you are in game, dig into the help system, get to know the AI in there. Both the System UI and the AI are adaptive. They will change to fit you if you want them too badly enough. We are effectively rebooting here, but we have some of advantages because of my previous experiences.”
My mind is trying to process all he’d said. I wanted to get something concrete, “Okay. Let’s check the basics. How will we communicate. How often?”.
“I can come to you in dreams, visions at sacred sites, things like that. It will have to be few and far between at first. We don’t have the budget for a lot of waste. Next question?” Gar asked turning towards me again and raising an eyebrow.
I ran my hand over my face, then pushed the hair back off my face and behind my ear on one side, thinking. “Let’s break this down into smaller pieces. What will my first week look like. What are my goals when I hit the ground?”
Easy. Step 1 Survive. Step two Learn, step 3 Master your Magic. Focus on using your magic precisely, economically, and quickly. Build the reflexes and habits that will keep you alive. When you get to where you feel competent with the local monsters, when you are out of the stage where a sneeze can kill you, head to the nearest town. Aggie says you know how already. You ready?”
I shrugged and nodded my assent.
“Let’s get you to the embarkation gate and into Devona!”
“You are lucky, you don’t have all the training you would normally get, but you are getting an excellent set of starter gear and an excellent location.”